We arrived at our campground around 6 in the evening.  It was still around 80 degrees but so dry – no humidity!!  We camped here at Canton Lake one other time about 2 years ago.  We did not have a drought then this area and the lake was higher than it is now.  It has shrunk!  Still a big lake but a noticeable difference to anyone who has been here.  See the string of orange floats out there – that used to mark the end of the swimming area!!  I walked past those for a distance before I was able to walk in the nice chilly water!!

Here is a better picture of what they look like.

Pretty grasses – as you can see we took a walk after our evening meal and brought our chairs with us to set up down by the beach to enjoy the cool dry air while the sun was still out for a short while.

Our own little area – very few people are still at the campground this evening as the holiday weekend is over and folks will be back at work tomorrow.

This is a photo that I took while standing in the water – very clear water and the ripples in the sand look strange – as far as I could see the sandy bottom of the lake was like this.  I have a feeling I could have walked quite a way out in the water before it gets deep.

Taking a photo of Mike who gets really serious about his photos – it is interesting looking grass – I’m sure I will see the photo one of these days when he gets it on his blog.

Tuesday we are off to Colorado.  I will post from there next.  We will be camped at a KOA that is on the edge of town (La Junta) as there are some historical sites we want to visit on Wednesday – most likely we will have internet – I’m surprised we had internet at Canton Lake!!

(I scheduled this to post Tuesday morning – I wrote it Monday night)

We are about an hour drive from Oklahoma so most of the day was spent driving to northwest Oklahoma.  The weather was perfect – couldn’t ask for a better day.  The high was only 82 degrees.

To begin with I must confess I did no sewing – I intended to hand piece but the roads were bumpy and I think I measured my white pieces wrong – I need to get my mat out and ruler tomorrow and check measurements before I start.  No big deal – if they are wrong the blocks will just be a little smaller than they should be and more blocks will be needed – I will deal with it tomorrow evening or the next! At this rate little sewing will be done this trip

Some photos from the drive today:

Yes welcome to Oklahoma and road construction started almost immediately!

It is very dry here – drought conditions and excessive heat all summer are to blame – the first of smoke in the distance from a wildfire.

A short way later you could see more smoke.

In this photo you can see the trees in their dried up conditions.  No wonder they are having problems with fires.

Going through Oklahoma City we saw a new sky scraper being built.

We were lucky it was Labor Day today – lots of people had the day off and the traffic wasn’t bad.  Traffic did pick up in places but it wasn’t bad.

Now this was more like it – little traffic once we got away from the city – we saw our first Mesa – love those flat top hills.

On to the living area – it is small but keep in mind we also have the bed to stretch out on and recline and read if we don’t want to use our chairs.  We do have a tv – someone asked that it is a small tv and it is in the kitchen area – you pull it out from the wall and it turns to the living area or to the bed.

Here is the tv pulled out from the wall facing the living area – there is a stereo in the cabinet above the tv area.

Facing the bed – yes that is my reflection in the tv – there are two layers of blinds on all the windows in the bedroom area so the reflection is not on the screen if we wish to watch tv from here.  Truthfully though we rarely watch tv while we travel. Sometimes it is just because we are busy doing other things and also because we do spend the majority of the time outside not inside watching tv.  When we are inside we tend to read a lot and work on our computers – or in my case get some sewing done.  We always seem to have music playing.

The living area as it is when we are driving – all the seats forward, tables put away nothing laying around where it can fly out and hit you in sudden stops.

The living area when the chairs are turned inside when we are set up.  There is a curtain that shuts off the windshield area for privacy.  Tables I pulled out so you can see them.  Plenty of room to eat at and to use the computers or for my sewing.  The chairs recline all the way back just like “lazy boy chairs” do at home – no foot rest though.  The chairs  can be pulled forward more or go back more so there is plenty of leg room.

The closet and dresser

Mike remodeled the closet and we have the top half for hanging and the bottom half with plastic bins to hold t-shirts and other articles of clothing – a strap hooks to the floor in front of the boxes to keep them in place when traveling.

A skylight over head with a blind pull down, we also have a windshield reflector placed up there for the very sunny days to keep the heat out.  There are a couple storage areas up here as you can see and we keep soft things up there – the bath towels so if they would happen to fall it doesn’t do us any damage

More storage:

And all the way around the bed on the upper area is more storage area

This wraps around the ceiling by the bed in a U shape, the corner areas go back a good distance.

So that is it – this is what we live in when we travel.  This is a 2008 Navion IQ – diesel engine and this model floor plan was only sold for one or two years and they do not sell this model any more!  They are selling a different floor plan which we really did not like so we are glad we go this one when we did.  It is just under 25 feet in length and we pull our car behind us.  We love going to small campgrounds in the woods or on the prairies and desert area.  We do not like the “resort” type of campgrounds nor the “parking lot” type of campgrounds.   They tend to pack you in really close and you barely have any privacy at all in those type of places.  We like a more of a rustic type of atmosphere and a lot less people!!

Back to quilting tomorrow!

Last night we enjoyed the fireworks put on by the town of Ocean Springs near Biloxi Mississippi.  We had planned on a last walk at the beach last night and found out when we got there that the fireworks were scheduled so we stayed and watched.

My camera would not take top quality photos of fireworks so these are two that Mike took with his really good camera

And another!

It was a long drive home but it took less time than it did on Friday – less traffic and no car accidents stalling up traffic like on Friday.

Now back to routine – housework, laundry, watering the plants – the list goes on – I’ll get back to y’all tomorrow hope you had a great 4th.

I love riding on ferries – the wind blowing the hair, watching the water and the birds – what could be better (as long as it is not too choppy!)

Car is parked, emergency brake on, fee paid, now we can get out and walk around

See the gull – it stayed in that general location the whole way across.

Fort Gaines that we had just toured seen from a distance.

Looking down at the cars from the viewing deck that we were on most of the way across the water – ferry was 20 to 30 minutes I forgot to check the time so I am guessing.

This is in the general area of the oil accident last year you see these oil and natural gas rigs all over the place

a ferry going the opposite direction – this is the same kind we were on

Coming into the docking area – what a wonderful site – pelicans posing for us

my souvenir for the day – a little southern cookbook – $2.50 – not a bad price

a recipe I would like to try – pineapple pie – I never heard of it for some reason but sounds good to me!

We went to take a walk at the beach this evening and found they were having their 4th of July fireworks tonight so we stayed and saw them.  Got back late so I guess I better get cleaned up and to bed – we hit the road in the morning.  Both post that will be up on the 4th I have written the night of the 3rd and have scheduled.  We will home late and I will get caught up with more photos on Tuesday.

Have a great 4th to all of my American readers.

Saturday was spent in the Gulfport to Biloxi area – Sunday was from Pascagoula and into Alabama – we went down to Fort Gaines, took the ferry across to Fort Morgan but decided to skip that one and then went north and then over through Mobile and back to our motel.

This morning we decided to drive towards Alabama and see what was over there by the seashore, on the map we saw several forts and thought they might be interesting to see also could see that there would be a ferry ride.

Entrance to the fort:

This fort is from 1821 and was used in the Civil War.  This is an over view of the fort.  At the most I about 400 soldiers worked here.

This sign caught my eye – how could it not – ever wonder about sanitation from the mid 1800’s especially at war time – well this explains this one

The ten holes – lack of privacy yes!

The bakery–

Sign at the museum by a photo – I could relate so to what it says of children running around playing in the fort ruins before it was made into a museum.  I could just picture myself and my many siblings running through this playing all sorts of games – we would have loved it!!

Pottery shards

A typical uniform – after being here for two days in the this humidity I can not even begin to imagine how hot and uncomfortable it was for soldiers to wear these wool uniforms – no wonder death rate was high from illness!!

After we left here we drove to the ferry – next post

I went on a trip and didn’t tell y’all On Thursday Mike said why don’t we take a spur of the moment little trip to Dallas so you can see the show – and of course I said yes.  Recently we decided it probably wasn’t best to announce on our blogs when we are traveling so I am trying to think of how to do my blog when traveling without letting it be known that our house is empty – so this time I just didn’t tell you all – it was a short trip so it was easy.  I’m not sure how I will do if for long trips.  We left on Friday and got home today.  On Saturday we went to the Dallas Quilt Show and on Sunday we went to the Dallas Botanical Gardens.

One of the ladies in my quilting groups entered a quilt for the first time and it was at the Dallas Quilt Show – I’m sure anyone who was there noticed it – she got an Honorable Mention for her beautiful wall quilt -

another view:

another – a close up of the eyes – she beaded the eyes and the mane although from this photo I can tell I didn’t get a close up of the beads on the mane very well.

On the Pioneer Woman’s page she is always showing off her hotel rooms so I thought I would take some photos of ours before we messed it all up.  We didn’t take the motorhome this time as we have not gotten the new car set up for towing yet so we stayed in a Hyatt Hotel in Plano.  Well ok, I guess it is a little messy already – big room/suite – weekend rates and price line prices you know – 3 nights so we splurged a little although the bathroom was tiny and I didn’t think to take photos of that area like she always does – it was nothing special!

Living area–

nice bedroom area

Super big TV to watch all the horrific news coming from Japan when we were in the room.

Desk area and wet bar area – which really all we used was the coffee maker! Big drinkers we aren’t

Not as spectacular room as the Pioneer Woman always stays at but it was nice I thought.  Although I was very glad we brought our own bedroom pillows – can’t say I thought or ever do think much of the pillows on the beds.

Now though after traveling all day I am tired – I have laundry started and I am going to kick back and relax a little and do some quilting and put the tv on – I will be posting photos all week from the quilt show and the gardens – this might take a week or so – I have about 300 photos at least to go through I will try to pick out the best ones to share.

But first I will show that I have gotten a little sewing done too – two more star blocks for the Star Crazy BOM:

And one more.  I have one more of this style of block to make and then I am done with the July blocks that I brought with me to make. 

Here at May Creek Campground there is a trail head that goes to an old cabin.  The sign said 2 miles so we started off at about 10 this morning to see it.  It starts at May Creek of course:

The hiking trail goes along side the creek the whole way:

What a beautiful blue sky!

A beautiful plant along the way – haven’t a clue what it is: anyone know?

The cabin! wow I was expecting a little bit more

How quickly a blue sky can change – we left around 10 and the sky was bright blue – we reached the cabin around 11:30 and ate some lunch that we had brought with us.  We had heard it might rain today so we decided to start back and good thing we did – by noon it was cloudy up quickly.

By the end of the trail it looked like this and was beginning to thunder.  We got back to the motor home at 12:45 and beat the rain by about 5 minutes!  Good timing.

The sign to the trail:

I am going to be scheduling all of these post from Bannack, Lemhi and May Creek when we get to Livingston MT where we will have electricity and internet.  Some of them might be out of order by date – but this one was written on July 31 and that is when we took this hike also.

As I mentioned in the last post of this high mountain pass we came to the Sacajawea memorial park at the top.  Here are the photos:

The guiding force behind the memorial:

another sign:

This is what Lewis and Clark called the “head of the Missouri River” they followed streams and I think this was the one they followed, it was later believed though that it is not the head of the river.  When we visited the area in the late 1970’s we have a photo of the girls straddling the stream to say they were at the head of the river.  We were looking for this spot and surprised that we found it this trip:

The first paragraph on this sign is from the journal of Lewis indicating they thought this was the beginning of the Missouri River.

Heading down out of the mountain – this is the road we followed:

More big horn sheep – we saw 9 of them this time.  This is almost back to the campground – just before we get to the mountains with the forests.

That is it for the mountain pass – hope you enjoyed it!

Yesterday on the 30th of July besides going to the state park of Bannack-ghost town we took a drive that was about 150 miles.  This was a loop drive (kind of) that first included our stop at Bannack.  By one in the afternoon we were heading to the pass.  We had not been on this very nice gravel road since 1977.  Beautiful!!!

Here is the sign we saw as we were ending our drive over the pass – this was if you came in the opposite direction from near Salmon Idaho.  We started on the Montana side as that is were we were.

As we started our drive we came across this rest stop – Clark Canyon Reservoir.  I wouldn’t have thought to see an island in this area:

A sign at the reservoir:

A map of the Lewis and Clark Expedition:

Pelican at the lake:

A sign of some flowers in the area – we didn’t see any bitterrott but we sure saw a lot of other flowers!

The top of the pass:

The rock with information:

At the top of the pass you are also at the Continental Divide:

At the top – what you see:

Flowers:

Sego Lilies:

The intersection – first we turn left for a 1/4 mile drive to the Sacajawea memorial park then back track and start down the pass taking the road to the right for about 20 miles ending up in Idaho and the drive back through Salmon and then into Montana to the park we are currently camped at.

This post on the Lemhi Pass will be in two or three parts as well. I didn’t realize I had so many photos Until I start to go through them!!